AN EMPIRICAL-TEST OF 2 VENDORS TRADE DISCOUNTS

In a comparison of discounts between Blackwell North America and Baker & Taylor, acquisitions personnel at Jacksonville State University fou nd considerable discrepancy between the two vendors' categorization of trade books. Then a recently announced lawsuit against Baker & Taylor (B&T) questioning the application of the trade book category, led to a review of B&T invoices for analysis of trade discounts. This study r evealed that the vendor applied discounts from 5% to 40% for books cla ssified as trade on their invoices, Based on that four-month study, th e authors project an annual difference of almost $4,000 between actual discounts and the anticipated 40% discount for trade books as defined by B&T. (C) 1998 Elsevier Science Ltd.